Publications by authors named "Anna K Schmidtner"

Introduction: The development of stress-related psychopathologies, often associated with socio-emotional dysfunctions, is crucially determined by genetic and environmental factors, which shape the individual vulnerability or resilience to stress. Especially early adolescence is considered a vulnerable time for the development of psychopathologies. Various mouse strains are known to age-dependently differ in social, emotional, and endocrine stress responses based on genetic and epigenetic differences.

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  • Researchers created a comprehensive cell atlas of the aging brain by analyzing 1.65 million single-nucleus RNA sequences from older adults, revealing specific cell types linked to Alzheimer’s disease (AD).
  • They discovered two distinct microglial subpopulations involved in the progression of amyloid-β and tau proteinopathies, as well as an astrocyte subpopulation linked to cognitive decline.
  • Using a new methodology called BEYOND, the study identified two different pathways of brain aging, which helps in developing personalized therapies targeting specific cellular communities related to AD and other forms of brain aging.
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Animal models of selective breeding for extremes in emotionality are a strong experimental approach to model psychopathologies. They became indispensable in order to increase our understanding of neurobiological, genetic, epigenetic, hormonal, and environmental mechanisms contributing to anxiety disorders and their association with depressive symptoms or social deficits. In the present review, we extensively discuss Wistar rats selectively bred for high (HAB) and low (LAB) anxiety-related behaviour on the elevated plus-maze.

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Article Synopsis
  • Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is a progressive brain disorder linked to aging, and recent research has created a detailed cell atlas of the prefrontal cortex to understand its cellular dynamics.
  • The study identified specific cell populations that contribute to AD, including two types of microglia associated with amyloid-β and tau proteins, and an astrocyte subpopulation linked to cognitive decline.
  • The researchers developed a methodology called BEYOND to reveal two aging trajectories in older individuals, providing insights that could lead to new treatments and management strategies for AD and alternative brain aging.
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Cortical neuronal networks control cognitive output, but their composition and modulation remain elusive. Here, we studied the morphological and transcriptional diversity of cortical cholinergic VIP/ChAT interneurons (VChIs), a sparse population with a largely unknown function. We focused on VChIs from the whole barrel cortex and developed a high-throughput automated reconstruction framework, termed PopRec, to characterize hundreds of VChIs from each mouse in an unbiased manner, while preserving 3D cortical coordinates in multiple cleared mouse brains, accumulating thousands of cells.

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The neuropeptide oxytocin (OXT) has generated considerable interest as potential treatment for psychiatric disorders, including anxiety and autism spectrum disorders. However, the behavioral and molecular consequences associated with chronic OXT treatment and chronic receptor (OXTR) activation have scarcely been studied, despite the potential therapeutic long-term use of intranasal OXT. Here, we reveal that chronic OXT treatment over two weeks increased anxiety-like behavior in rats, with higher sensitivity in females, contrasting the well-known anxiolytic effect of acute OXT.

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Changes in sphingolipid metabolism have been suggested to contribute to the pathophysiology of major depression. In this study, we investigated the activity of acid and neutral sphingomyelinases (ASM, NSM) and ceramidases (AC, NC), respectively, in twelve brain regions of female rats selectively bred for high (HAB) versus low (LAB) anxiety-like behavior. Concomitant with their highly anxious and depressive-like phenotype, HAB rats showed increased activity of ASM and NSM as well as of AC and NC in multiple brain regions associated with anxiety- and depressive-like behavior, including the lateral septum, hypothalamus, ventral hippocampus, ventral and dorsal mesencephalon.

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Major depressive disorder is the main cause of disability worldwide with imperfect treatment options. However, novel therapeutic approaches are currently discussed, from augmentation strategies to novel treatments targeting the immune system or the microbiome-gut-brain axis. Therefore, we examined the potential beneficial effects of minocycline, a tetracycline antibiotic with pleiotropic, immunomodulatory action, alone or as augmentation of escitalopram on behavior, prefrontal microglial density, and the gut microbiome in rats selectively bred for high anxiety-like behavior (HAB).

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Social stress occurs in all social species, including humans, and shape both mental health and future interactions with conspecifics. Animal models of social stress are used to unravel the precise role of the main stress system - the HPA axis - on the one hand, and the social behavior network on the other, as these are intricately interwoven. The present review aims to summarize the insights gained from three highly useful and clinically relevant animal models of psychosocial stress: the resident-intruder (RI) test, the chronic subordinate colony housing (CSC), and the social fear conditioning (SFC).

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